Bin Laden's Bookshelf

In the weeks following the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by United States forces, U.S. Intelligence Community analysts sifted through the recovered digital and hard copy materials in search of clues that would reveal ongoing al-Qa`ida plots, identities and locations of al-Qa`ida personnel, and other information of immediate importance.

On May 20, 2015, the ODNI released a sizeable tranche of documents recovered from the compound used to hide Osama bin Laden. On March 1, 2016, the ODNI released a second tranche of material gleaned from the Abbottabad raid. On January 19, 2017, the ODNI released the final tranche of documents. These releases, which followed a rigorous interagency review, align with the President’s call for increased transparency–consistent with national security prerogatives–and the 2014 Intelligence Authorization Act, which required the ODNI to conduct a review of the documents for release.

Editor's note: After the raid on Abbottabad, an interagency task force worked 24/7 to identify which of the recovered materials presented intelligence value. Once the task force pinpointed which materials were most useful to the Intelligence Community, they produced intelligence cables that were shared throughout the IC. The underpinning materials—hundreds of documents—that informed those cables were then reviewed for declassification and public release. All interagency declassification reviews of the Abbottabad materials were scoped specifically to this distilled set of materials—those with intelligence value—as opposed to the entire trove recovered at Abbottabad. Career intelligence professionals executed this interagency effort, with CIA as Executive Agent. On November 1, 2017, CIA released nearly 470,000 files that included draft versions of items previously reviewed as well as other correspondence and materials outside the scope of previous declassification reviews.

International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific by John Ikenberry and Michael Mastandano

Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II by William Blum

Military Intelligence Blunders by John Hughes-Wilson

Project MKULTRA, the CIA’s program of research in behavioral modification. Joint hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, Ninety-fifth Congress, first session, August 3, 1977. United States. Congress. Senate. Select Committee on Intelligence.

Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies by Noam Chomsky

New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 by David Ray Griffin

New Political Religions, or Analysis of Modern Terrorism by Barry Cooper

Obama’s Wars by Bob Woodward

Oxford History of Modern War by Charles Townsend

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy

Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower by William Blum

The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly Hall (1928)

Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Eustace Mullins

The Taking of America 1-2-3 by Richard Sprague

Unfinished Business, U.S. Overseas Military Presence in the 21st Century by Michael O’Hanlon

An interagency Intelligence Community taskforce, under the auspices of the White House and with the agreement of the DNI, reviewed all documents from Abbottabad. As of January 19, 2017, all documents whose publication would not jeopardize ongoing operations against al-Qa‘ida or their affiliates have been released.

This list contains U.S. person information that is being released in accordance with the Fiscal Year 2014 Intelligence Authorization Act (section 309) requirement that the Director of National Intelligence conduct a declassification review of certain items collected during the mission that killed Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011, and make publicly available any information declassified as a result of such review.

All publications are unclassified and available commercially or in the public domain. The U.S. Intelligence Community does not endorse any of the publications appearing on this list.